According to a petition on the 38 Degrees website, the government closed – closed – a public consultation on proposals to privatise the 152-year-old Land Registry on March 20 this year.

“There has been no publicity or attempt to inform the public of this radical change to an organisation that is vital to the UK property market,” the text of the petition states.

While this is not strictly true, it would be accurate to say that the plan has not been well-publicised. Not at all.

The government put out a press release on January 23, saying a consultation was taking place on plans “to help Land Registry deliver more efficient and modern services”. That’s no way to announce a privatisation – and the plan to create a private company was only revealed several paragraphs into the text.

Why is this important?

Well, the Land Registry is one of the largest property databases in Europe, guaranteeing title to registered estates and interests in land, recording the ownership rights of freehold properties and leasehold properties where the lease has been granted for longer than seven years.

It is self-financing; its income generated by registration and search fees. You pay to access certain information.

Last month, 3,000 PCS Union members went on a two-day strike over the “secret” privatisation proposal. A report in The Guardiansaid the government had failed to explain what problem is was trying to fix, or what benefits would be gained by privatisation.

“Key among the organisation’s many functions are quasi-judicial decisions on ownership and transfers, granting title and, crucially, guaranteeing legal rights on behalf of the state. This is not just of fundamental importance to homeowners, but an essential feature of our economy. The backbone of the system is its freedom from outside influence and commercial interest,” the article stated.

Clearly, privatisation would put the Land Registry entirely under threat of outside influence and dominated by commercial interest.

Also: “The agency is also currently bound by government policy on procurement, designed to assist small and medium-sized businesses to compete against the oligopoly of large suppliers. But BIS [The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills] has identified this as a problem, claiming greater flexibility in the private sector to buy goods and services. In a truly astonishing move, a government agency faces being changed into a commercial company so it can avoid the very controls the government brought in to protect small businesses.”

The article also warned of “massive job losses and office closures” and said the government had “flatly refused” to publish and fully consult on these plans.

The petition states that “another consultation on giving the Land Registry wider powers in the control of data essential to the sale and purchase of property closed earlier with the majority of the public not being aware if it’s existence.”

It seems our attention is being directed away from another Tory-led plan to sell one of our best-performing and most efficient public services off to create more profit for private business – most notably big business, at the expense of small and medium-sized enterprises – while forcing the public sector to do all the work for nothing.

Being privatised opens the Land Reg up to foreign ownership. Who the hell thought this up, and why the hell was it allowed without scrutiny? There are so many questions, and no apparent way to get any answers.

The Land Registry charges are already “enough” for such things as trying to register land (when the records do not match reality, more common than people think). It’s a monopoly that was bearable, if bureaucratic, as a function of the state. Going by the previous sales by this lot, the fairly crass motive has been quick profit by their mates. This perhaps goes one step too far. Loosing a couple of billion from the botched Royal Mail sell-off looks trivial compared to the ramifications of the privatised Land registry. This one is a definite “must” for Labour to pledge to reverse once in office.

I’ve known about this for some time, I was going to post it on one of your preivous privatisation articles.

Next thing you know they’ll sell off the UK coastguard service to an American firm for £2billion.
..Please hold, all our operatives are busy, your call is important to us. que Celine Dion or Rod Stuart…. Please hold…have a nice day…

The Selfservatives are completely economically illiterate. The only ways they know how to ‘make’ money is to inherit it, marry it, or sell something that doesn’t even belong to them – including someone elses labour.

It seems Tessa Munt, PPS to Vince Cable (who still happens to be the Business Secretary) will be on Question Time along with Iain Duncan Smith on Thursday. Do you think there will be a question on the Land Registry sell-off?

The Tories will privatise anything. As One Angry Voice Says :”It’s like having a government full of smackheads who are willing to sell anything not nailed down and willing to take a crowbar to the things that are nailed down,regardless of who they belong too.”

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